Can we repeat the original question please?

It’s all been said at this point really, hasn’t it? The country’s losing the run of itself. The No camp are letting the masks slip with increasing frequency, sending horrific abuse in every direction (including, in bed-shitting style, their own). The Yes camp are motivated, mobilised, and beyond terrified of defeat.

I could have spent plenty of my paragraphs and your time extolling the importance of equality and progressing the nation, but I won’t.

I could rant for a while about the clear lies and misdirections being thrown at you all year by the Ionas, but I won’t.

I’ll make this really, really simple.

They’re our friends.

LGBTQ people across the country are our friends, our coworkers, and our family. They’re a part of this country just like everyone else, except that the institution of marriage isn’t available to them simply because of who they love.

They’re being told on a daily basis that they’re bad parents, lesser people, and unworthy of equality in our country. They’re being told this by homophobes, bigots, religious demagogues and utter, utter bastards that want to return us all to a time when Ireland was a “catholic country”. Children at the hands of deviants, unmarried mothers sent to slave camps, that kind of jazz. And these bastards say our friends aren’t worth defending, that they must remain second class citizens.

To which I say very simply : fuck yourselves.

They’re our friends, and they need our help. They don’t have the numbers to win this alone. And so, it falls to us to help them. We must vote. We must not be too hungover, too lazy, in the wrong place, not really bothered, or unregistered. We cannot lose this. The rest of the world is watching, fully aware of the Ireland we’ve emerged form over the past 3 decades. They’re watching and they’re cheering us on, pleading with us to get this right for the sake of progress everywhere.

They’re our friends, and they’re relying on us. You and me and everyone else that can think for themselves and realise that the question is simply one of marriage equality, and all the shit that’s been thrown is merely a distraction.